Supporters of warfare, welfare, and Wonder Woman cheered last week as
Congress passed a one trillion dollar “omnibus” appropriation bill. This
legislation funds the operations of government for the remainder of the fiscal
year. Wonder Woman fans can cheer that buried in the bill was a $10,000 grant
for a theater program to explore the comic book heroine.
That is just one of the many outrageous projects buried in this 1,582-page
bill. The legislation gives the Department of Education more money to continue
nationalizing education via “common core.” Also, despite new evidence of
Obamacare’s failure emerging on an almost daily basis, the Omnibus bill does
nothing to roll back this disastrous law.
Even though the Omnibus bill dramatically increases government spending, it
passed with the support of many self-described “fiscal conservatives.” Those
wondering why anyone who opposes increasing spending on programs like common
core and Obamacare would vote for the bill, may find an answer in the fact that
the legislation increases funding for the “Overseas Continuing Operations” —
which is the official name for the war budget — for the first time since 2010.
This $85 billion war budget contains $6 billion earmarked for projects
benefiting Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and other big defense contractors.
Ever since “sequestration” went into effect at the beginning of last year,
the military-industrial complex’s congressional cheering session has complained
that sequestration imposed “draconian cuts” on the Pentagon that will
“decimate” our military — even though most of the “cuts” were actually
reductions in the “projected rate of growth.” In fact, under sequestration,
defense spending was to increase by 18 percent over ten years, as opposed to
growing by 20 percent without sequestration.
Many of the defenders of increased war spending are opponents of welfare,
but they are willing to set aside their opposition to increased welfare
spending in order to increase warfare spending. They are supported in this
position by the lobbyists for the military-industrial complex and the
neoconservatives, whose continued influence on foreign policy is mystifying.
After all, the neocons were the major promoters of the disastrous military
intervention in Iraq.
While many neocons give lip service to limiting domestic spending, their
main priority remains protecting high levels of military spending to maintain
an interventionist foreign policy. The influence of the neocons provides
intellectual justification for politicians to vote for ever-larger military
budgets —and break the campaign promises to vote against increases in spending
and debt.
Fortunately, in recent years more Americans have recognized that a constant
defense of liberty requires opposing both war and welfare. Many of these
Americans, especially the younger ones, have joined the intellectual and
political movement in favor of limiting government in all areas. This movement
presents the most serious challenge the bipartisan welfare-warfare consensus
has faced in generations. Hopefully, the influence of this movement will lead
to bipartisan deals cutting both welfare and warfare spending.
The question facing Americans is not whether Congress will ever cut
spending. The question is will the spending be reduced in an orderly manner
that avoids inflecting massive harm on those depending on government programs,
or will spending be slashed in response to an economic crisis caused by
ever-increasing levels of deficit spending. Because politicians are followers
rather than leaders, it is ultimately up to the people what course we will
take. This is why it is vital that those of us who understand the dangerous
path we are currently on do all we can to expand the movement for liberty,
peace, and prosperity.
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